Using Bogus Science, Scare Tactics to Fleece Us

Mark Eddy

Some in the medical establishment are employing their Goebbels tactics again. In the the Jan. 12 The Intelligencer, health chairman Holloway is quoted as saying medical marijuana “is simply a back door for recreational use.” The article goes on to note: “Holloway also criticized the use of medical marijuana in general. He said justification for ‘medical use comes from very bad medicine, very bad science.'”

And the opioid epidemic is based on good medicine and rock solid, scientific data? The Intelligencer of July 15 lets us know what the opioids are based on. That article quotes West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey as saying, “In particular, we’re going to be reaching out to the insurers and health care providers about the financial incentive for prescribing opiates, as opposed to non-opiate products …”

Many of the opioid users got hooked because of some unscrupulous doctors’ desires for kickbacks from the pharmaceutical industry. The epidemic gripping the valley is based on greed, not empirical data. In the July 9 Intelligencer, we are told: “Gamble said that from September 2015 to last week (early July 2017), ‘just about 8,313 needles were dispensed …'”

However, in the Jan. 10 Intelligencer, we are given an update on the highly touted clean needle program: “The Wheeling-Ohio County Health Department’s needle exchange program has distributed approximately 14,000 new syringes since September 2015.”

Let’s apply the science of math. There were about 5,700 clean needles handed out between early July 2017 to January 2018. Don’t forget that more and more Narcan and Suboxone are available, too. Is it me, or is anyone else seeing that pharm and medical establishment are raking in huge profits from a manufactured epidemic that they created? This reward system of receiving exorbitant payments for making people worse needs to be changed immediately. In non-fairytale worlds, employees get fired for making mistakes.

But, I digress. And the press continues to report more overdoses and more children being born addicted. For example, in the Jan. 13 Intelligencer, it is noted that (m)ore than 30,000 West Virginians are already in drug treatment. It also gives us some startling statistics: “Overdose deaths increased from 735 in 2015 to a record 884 statewide in 2016, and the toll could be rising still.”

So, is anyone getting sober? In the July 9 Intelligencer, we are given some of the purposes of the needle exchange program: “The needle exchange ‘is an effort that we can do to prevent public health diseases such as hepatitis and HIV …'”

However in the Jan. 13 Intelligencer, new data are presented: “A new state report indicates Tyler County … has the Northern Panhandle’s highest percentage of residents living with diagnosed cases of human immunodeficiency virus.” It goes on to state: “But Ohio County had the largest actual number, 48, of people living with HIV in the Northern Panhandle …”

This is just more of the medical establishment perpetuating the concept that pharm has all of life’s solutions, and you have to keep returning to the doc with your copay to get a new script. Who are the real pushers? How did the ’70s rock stars get off of heroin? Maybe Keef should be hired to lecture the medical establishment. Their science isn’t adding up. I’m unconvinced that today’s medical scientists have honest answers.

Speaking of bogus medical science, did you read the Dec. 30 in The Intelligencer about two new fracking studies? The first, in “Science Advances” concluded that “babies born to mothers within a half mile of a fracking site are 25 percent more likely to have low birth weight.” This finding is similar to Rabinowitz’s 2015 study. He states: “The number of reported health symptoms per person was higher among residents living (less than 1 kilometer) …compared with (more than 2 kilometers) from the nearest gas well.” Remember Chairman Holloway’s pontification? He promulgated, “And, to date, there is no, hard scientific evidence that (fracking) is endangering the public’s health” (The Intelligencer, May 14, 2014). Really? Let’s exit the land of unicorns, dragons, munchkins and wizards and enter the kingdom of hard science.

In the second study, which conveniently appeared simultaneously and was “industry-funded,” it notes “fracking did not impact health adversely in six Pennsylvania counties, including Washington County, from 2000 to 2014.” The article continues, “In all six counties that had the highest development activity in Pennsylvania, the death rates declined or remained stable, despite a significant increase in the elderly population. This indicates that health and longevity did not decline as some have said would happen, and in fact, longevity increased as the average household income and employment in these counties improved …” There is the inevitable declaration that “profits make everything OK.” (Is there a non-opiate medication to control magical thinking)?

So, I am to conclude that taking a swig of frack gas first thing in the morning is going to bring health and wealth? If doctors or coroners misdiagnose, overlook or don’t report possible frack-related illnesses, then the studies’ results will be skewed. I forgot to mention the Rabinowitz study focused on Washington County.

So whose science are we to believe? The second study was industry-funded. In the Rabinowitz study, they state: “The authors declare they have no actual or potential competing financial interests.” Moreover, Washington County had zero frack pads in 2001 and only one in 2002. It wasn’t until 2006 that fracking began to be amplified. Let me get this straight: Washington County butts up against Ohio County; both are heavily fracked; but Ohio County has escaped unscathed from all possible ill-health effects of fracking? I know the health department likes vaccinating, but do they have a frack vaxx now? Are Ohio Countians being given unbiased, scientific facts or just opinions from people who want a brother to be a bringer of a cracker?

Let’s take other scientists’ research a little further. In 2016, Finkel published her conclusions to her study of the incidence of cancer in southwestern Pennsylvania. Her data was collected for nearly the same time period as the industry funded study noted above. Her results were: “The number of urinary bladder (cancer) cases diagnosed was higher than expected in both sexes in counties with shale gas activity. In counties with the fewest number of producing wells, the increase in cases was essentially non-existant.” In 2016, Rasmussen’s research in Pennsylvania resulted in concluding: “(She) found that living near UNGD operations significantly increases asthma attacks. ..”

West Virginia University’s very own Dr. McCawley noted: “It seems at least possible that some, if not all, of the respiratory effects associated with unconventional resource development may be traffic-related. Road traffic generated by hydraulic fracturing operations is one possible source of environmental impact whose significance has, until now, been largely neglected in the available literature with 4,000 to 6,000 vehicles visiting the well pad.” That is nice to know that the thousands of trucks going by (occasionally driving in my front yard) to haul “fresh water” to the eight pads surrounding my house could be causing our neighborhood to have pulmonary problems.

But local health officials are asking me to believe, “It’s safe.” They don’t know, for the health board has been a no-show each time I invited them to visit my house. I wish I could be paid a doctor’s salary and not be responsible. More and more people are realizing the medical establishment’s agenda to use scare tactics and bogus science to fleece and control us is not effective.

Mark Eddy is a co-host on The Fringe.FM’s “Project Compass.” He is a contributing author to “Ancient American” magazine. He lives in an area of Ohio County that has been heavily fracked.